I think a Trump Administration will have a mixed impact on technology and innovation. The pro-business and anti-regulatory stance will stimulate new ventures and innovation. The uncertainty of what portions of the ACA will stay and what will go could limit technology investment on the part of hospitals as revenue streams could destabilize and hospitals seek to preserve capital.

-David Bensema, Chief Information Officer, Baptist Health

Certainly appreciate the uncertainty and curiosity. Suffice it to say that we will continue to work with all parties and stakeholders (as we have always) to advance policies that facilitate patient access to high quality, affordable healthcare provided by healthier, happier physicians/clinicians working in fulfilling and sustainable practices. It is too soon at this time to speculate in more detail.

-Steven Stack, MD, Immediate Past President, American Medical Association

If the President-Elect’s oft-repeated intention to reduce burdensome regulations extends into the health IT field, the impact will be significant. The Meaningful Use program did a lot to accelerate adoption of digital information technology in healthcare, but it has been several years since the program ceased to be productive and started erecting unintended barriers to the very innovation and progress that it was originally implemented to incentivize. All across the economy, information technology is enabling quantum leaps in efficiency, accuracy, and safety. We are hopeful that a regulatory reset in healthcare could help health IT to catch up to the 21st century.

-Dan Haley, SVP, General Counsel, athenahealth

The specifics are impossible to predict. We will want to watch for congressional and Administration action in such areas as regulation (de-regulation) of health IT, interoperability, shifts in the ACA and consequent impacts on provider revenues available for technology acquisitions, the course of MACRA (and further Meaningful Use) implementation and what I would expect to be a continuation and expansion of recent Administration efforts to add flexibility for providers. The fundamental challenge will be to effectively balance a desire for less regulatory complexity with the need of industry for regulatory predictability to enable confident investments in technology and operations.

-Mark Segal, PhD, Vice President, Government and Industry Affairs, GE Healthcare IT (opinions expressed are those of Dr. Segal, not an official GE Statement)

We can work in a constructive and bipartisan way with anyone who is open to discussion of the issues and the options for addressing them. A large portion of the health IT agenda has bipartisan support. The change in administration may help break the current logjam and get legislation like 21st Century Cures moving in the lame duck session. MACRA was one of a very few pieces of legislation in this Congress that received significant support from both parties. There may be attempts to tweak the regulations, but overall, the program seems on solid ground. ONC’s scope and mission will likely get a fresh examination. As long as the process is inclusive and open, it could be a good thing for the health IT agenda. One area that might get enhanced attention is attempting to reduce the overwhelming administrative burdens that crush clinicians and impede the progress of health IT implementation and optimization.

-Thomson Kuhn, Health IT Consultant, American College of Physicians

At this point I’m not sure that we know enough about what the Administration’s priorities are going to be in this area to have a good answer to this. We certainly hope there will be an understanding that investing in healthcare technology and innovation is not only good for the delivery of care and patients but also for the economy.

–Susan Turney, MD, FACP, FACMPE, President and Chief Executive Officer, Marshfield Clinic

In the past seven years of pressing for interoperability through HIE services, I have been impressed with the importance of payment reform in bringing focus. More than Meaningful Use, state regulations, standards making efforts, or good intentions it is the alignment created by payment reform which has driven the adoption of HIE tools. Obviously CMS is the biggest payer and has been very, very active on the payment reform front recently. So, we will be attentive to CMS and especially CMMI as a place where the new administration’s policies could impact health IT trends and adoption. But I have no particular predictions or expectations as to what those changes might be.

-David Horrocks, President and Chief Executive Officer, Chesapeake Regional Information System for our Patients (CRISP)

The emphasis on private market solutions could empower novel healthcare technology solutions if there were more public-private partnerships with the goal of unlocking market efficiencies. Specifically, creation of a system in which true patient ownership of data is possible would be ideal, especially if that data can be portaged securely to be able to be aggregated for use in clinical research, real world evidence, and clinical care coordination. While it is doubtful that the Trump administration would directly influence the EMR world, with a focus on state-level solutions, we may see some interesting experiments in multi-stakeholder partnering to enable creation of a better data exchange and usage environment, for the sake of triple aim goals (better care, smarter care, lower cost).

-healthcare executive, pharmaceutical manufacturer

With a focus on energizing America’s economy, dealing with the high percentage of healthcare spending in our country, including its impact on Medicare and Medicaid, will need to be a key focus for the new administration. Technology on its own can’t solve the problem, but continuing to innovate on how health and care is better managed and delivered with technology being an important enabler will be required. I would expect an emphasis to encourage and incentivize this innovation in the private sector versus being developed and pushed top down by the federal government. As an industry, we will have the opportunity to continue our collaborative efforts to create the environment and healthcare system in this country we all want to see.

-Doug Dietzman, Executive Director, Great Lakes Health Connect

We predict less government regulation in many areas, opening the door for greater private sector innovation. While there will continue to be interest within the Government to use the policy levers to solve important problems and to promote quality, safety, and efficiency, the opportunity for the private sector to lead and to innovate will be enhanced.

-HIT Executive

While we are all waiting on additional details regarding Trump’s priorities for his administration, we feel that a Trump Administration will encourage the use of technology and innovation to ensure that patient’s get and stay on their medications in order to lower overall medical costs and improve patient outcomes. This is core to our business and focus.

- Rick Ratliff, President & Chief Commercial Officer, ConnectiveRx

The senior leadership and governance of our organization continue to make information technology a strategic enabler to meet our goals. Like many other provider health organizations, we continue to be highly focused on several areas of technology and innovation: Electronic Health Records, and Interoperability; Cyber-Security; and TeleHealth, and eVisits.

-provider executive

The overall organizational strategy will not change. The innovative pharmaceutical industry has always been focused on finding treatments and cures that create a better world of health, and do so in a way that reduces overall costs for society. The issue will continue to be financial viability in this high risk and capital intensive business. There will be a continued push to create value based agreements, and do so with relief from “best price” and “anti-kickback statutes” in order to create novel agreements that benefit both manufacturers and providers/patients.  MACRA will stay in place as the most bi-partisan of legislation passed in past two years, and so the focus on quality and value will continue.

-healthcare executive, pharmaceutical manufacturer

Elections and changes of party and Administration always bring new policies and initiatives and we can therefore expect changes in federal government laws, regulations, and policies that will necessitate revisions to business strategies. Having said that, I expect that the fundamental drivers will remain in place, increasing digitization of healthcare, accelerating shifts from fee for service to value-based payment and delivery system reform, and a focus on interoperability and analytics to take advantage of the explosion of digital health data will absolutely remain in place and drive our priorities as we serve our customers' needs.

-Mark Segal, PhD, Vice President, Government and Industry Affairs, GE Healthcare IT (opinions expressed are those of Dr. Segal, not an official GE Statement)

Well prior to Trump’s election, we at athenahealth had resolved to bring to our provider clients the health IT experience that we would have built, had the federal government not decided to impose a slew of functionality requirements on health IT that despite best intentions ended up actually impeding efficiency and quality. So in many respects our strategy remains the same—with the hope and expectation that the new Administration might actually do some regulatory brush-clearing on their end.

-Dan Haley, SVP, General Counsel, athenahealth

The pressures to improve care quality, access and efficiency remain. Both government and the private sector will continue their efforts to transform healthcare. MACRA and other federal efforts have had bipartisan support and we expect that this support will continue. Moreover, all leaders in healthcare recognize the essential and diverse role of information technology. We do not expect any significant changes in our solutions and services strategies and priorities.

-John Glaser, PhD, Executive Vice President, Cerner Corporation

We are completing an Epic implementation and that does not allow for variance from the plan.  Beyond the integrated EHR implementation, our organizational priorities and strategy have been, and should be in a Trump Administration, developing the administrative structures and health team relationships that will allow us to smoothly transition to a value-based reimbursement environment.  I think MACRA will remain in place, so these efforts should not change.

-David Bensema, Chief Information Officer, Baptist Health

No. As a state-wide health information organization working to build Care Connected Communities, our focus will not change. Regardless of the form of financing healthcare takes, there will always be many varied stakeholders across the physical, behavioral, and social health ecosystems in our communities along with a wide variety of data capture systems that need to be integrated to realize the vision of a person’s healthcare data being where it needs to be to best care for them. Our priorities will remain focused on integrating the community healthcare ecosystem in support of a higher standard of health for Michigan citizens.

-Doug Dietzman, Executive Director, Great Lakes Health Connect

We have the same goals and commitments now as before the election.  Unless and until the provider organizations and policy makers in our region instruct us to shift our focus, we will press ahead.

-David Horrocks, President and Chief Executive Officer, Chesapeake Regional Information System for our Patients (CRISP)

A trump Administration will not change our priorities or strategy in the next year. Our communications with government may change in that we likely will have to inform a new Administration, along with new leadership at the agencies, about HIT and the importance of driving interoperability, but our goals, priorities, and strategies remain the same.

-HIT Executive

Currently, we plan to move forward with our current priorities and strategy in 2017. We are optimistic that the Trump Administration will implement new programs that will likely reduce friction in getting new medications into the market and promote the use of innovative approaches to help patient access the appropriate medications.

- Rick Ratliff, President & Chief Commercial Officer, ConnectiveRx

Our organization has a multi-year strategy that we continue to execute on.  We will be actively engaged with political leadership to influence several key areas of policy: Focus on value-based care, and pressures on providers to accept risk; Fundamentals to ensure accurate measurement of value; ACA exchanges, and stated changes by the Administration; and Federal deficit, and pressures on Medicare/Medicaid.

-provider executive